Thursday, January 10, 2008

Dan Shanoff Partnering with SportingNews.com

Qualifying as a pretty big announcement (at least for DanShanoff.com), I have entered a partnership with the Sporting News.

Starting Monday, my signature morning product – that began with the Quickie and migrated to the sports blogosphere at DanShanoff.com – will be found on SportingNews.com, both as a stand-alone column on the front page and as part of the Sporting Blog.

As with this blog's daily morning post and the old Quickie, there will be a permanent URL you can bookmark, along with an individual permalink to each day's column (for easy blog linking!)

What can you expect? The exact same thing that you get here! Only with a much spiffier brand attached to it.

The shallow analysis? Still there!The quick-hit format? Obvs!The takes on all the must-know storylines? Of course!The "instant history" and half-baked notions? Um...yes!The superlatives? (Best. Superlatives. Ever.)The daily frequency? Monday-Friday!The "Must-Reads" and hat-tips? Absolutely.The pop-culture and political sidebars? Is Bunk a drunk?The grudges and biases? (The guy who hired me is a Florida guy.)Available when you get to work? If not, what's the point?

The fact is: The signature post I've been doing every morning over the last 16 months on the blog is exactly what you'll still get. (Now, whether THAT is something you find valuable is entirely different.)

DanShanoff.com will continue to be here and active: Better than ever, actually, with more single-topic posts, new enhancements and content gimmickry that I will be rolling out and experimenting with over time.

Each morning on DanShanoff.com, I will tease the Sporting News column with the day's "Names to Know," then point you to the Sporting News column's URL. Other posts will pop up as inspiration allows. (But you are encouraged to access the column at SportingNews.com or TheSportingBlog.com directly, making both the column and my blog each a daily destination. I will be able to publish those URLs on Monday.)

Comments at DanShanoff.com are still welcome (though still moderated), and you can always try to join the on-topic conversation at DScommenters.blogspot.com.

Why am I making this return to "mainstream online sports media?" Duh: The money! (Kidding.)

Honestly, there are two factors at work:

One reason was buried in my Deadspin "In/Out" list for 2008: Near the end of 2007, there was a lot of attention paid in old sports media to old sports media journalists jumping online.

The really exciting trend was, not unsurprisingly, left underreported by the mainstream media too fixated on bemoaning the state of their own industry: Mainstream sports media hiring bloggers, as they recognize the value that these new voices bring.

From Henry Abbott joining ESPN.com at the start of the year to Jamie Mottram jumping from AOL Fanhouse to Yahoo Sports to Will Leitch being a staple of the New York Times' Op-Ed pages, sports-blogger value is skyrocketing (as it should be), and the opportunities are emerging as mainstream media recognizes that value.

The second factor: I was intrigued and energized by the specific and unique opportunity to join the Sporting News – for the chance to reach a wider audience, for the chance to help innovate one of the most famous brands in sports media and for the chance to work alongside some of the most respected names in the sports-blog universe.

The columnist lineup that SportingNews.com has put together is really impressive. Three recent additions are notable – king-of-their-sport talents who I really respect and admire: Spencer Hall (aka Orson Swindle) of Every Day Should Be Saturday, THE definitive college football blog; Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion, THE definitive hockey blogger; and Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio, who blew up in 2007 as arguably the most influential voice in NFL media.

But, wait, there's even more: Brian from Awful Announcing, the premier sports-media-criticism blog, is involved. SportingNews.com had already been using David Pinto from Baseball Musings. They have Will Leitch going down to the Super Bowl. And running the new "Sporting Blog" initiative is Chris Mottram, Jamie's brother and a rising online-sports programming talent in his own right.

I love being part of the sports-blog community, full of the most talented, enthusiastic people and engaged, knowledgeable fans I have ever encountered. Sincerely, it has been (and continues to be) one of the highlights of my career. I am still a sports blogger – now I just export a little blogger "cred" to mainstream sports media, an ironic twist given my origins as a guy who launched an indie sports blog entirely leveraged on my career in mainstream sports media.

And so tomorrow's "A.M. Quickie" will be the last weekday version published in its entirety on DanShanoff.com before the move on Monday to SportingNews.com and TheSportingBlog.com.

I hope you will still drop by DanShanoff.com daily for fresh opinion to see what's going on – and I hope you will continue to make the new (but familiar!) SportingNews.com column a weekday morning routine.

Well, Dan, I see congrats are in order. Nice gig you worked out with SN and I am glad to see the "Quickie" back to the mainstream.

And there is a certain irony to the blogosphere "mainstreaming" your approach after the Quickie's genesis in mainstream media was then pushed to the blog in the first place. It's almost like celebrities who have better "Second Acts" to their careers (e.g., Clooney).

Kudos to SN for recognizing "their way" was not getting it done anymore and have taken on some good talent in a cache of bloggers.

Congrats Dan. I know I enjoy your column here. You've mastered informative/simplicity in a format that feels original by you to your readers.

One thing I'd say is that although I know the blog poltickin' is great; there are other good bloggers with unique and great takes outside of the Mottram's, and the mainstream guys. To only and constantly mention them over and over and over is a bit of overkill and doesn't do the blogging genre much justice.

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About This Blog

DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.